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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23045410">safer than them, darling</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldentulips/pseuds/goldentulips'>goldentulips</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>an earlier grave is an optional way [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Outlast (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Comeplay, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Misgendering, Non-Penetrative Sex, Past Rape/Non-con, Porn With Plot, Rape/Non-con Elements, eddie's got a big dick, waylon might be held captive but he very much consents</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 16:09:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>13,632</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23045410</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldentulips/pseuds/goldentulips</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Eddie has moments of clarity, usually in the day time, usually when the sun peaks through the windows bright and glowing, during the time of day when nothing really seems all that bad. When the variants seem to rest, using the night to hunt their prey. Everything is backwards here. But during the day, it feels a little safer. Even safer now that he has Eddie to protect him. Sometimes that feels dangerous, too, but Waylon has figured out ways around it. There are loopholes, it seems. Things he can get Eddie to agree with that will stick if he repeats it enough, shows the importance through his words and his actions. But The Groom doesn't always keep his promises.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eddie Gluskin/Waylon Park</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>an earlier grave is an optional way [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1670479</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>270</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>safer than them, darling</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> — What is it? What is it about her? Why is she different? Why does she make him feel this way? Hopeful, apologetic? What is it about her? Seeing her broken this way makes him want to take her, to save her, to help her. Was it because she begged him? Falling into the circle of his dead bodies, tears in her eyes, pleading and promising. “I’ll be a good wife, I’ll be the best. Please give me another chance.” When has a whore ever deserved a second chance? But the way she looked at him, unable to stand, needing him so much— </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>He was never meant to stay here. Waylon tried to leave, he failed. His leg was too injured to run, Eddie was too tired to do anything further that night with his experiments, he thinks, but he has a vague memory of crying and asking Eddie to keep him alive.</p><p>It was when the sun was coming up, when Waylon woke to the feeling a bandage wrapped around the wound, angry words spilling out of Eddie’s mouth. An endless stream of <em> fucking whore fucking bitch fucking slut. </em>He didn’t say anything. He let Eddie yell at him. It was easier than arguing, especially when the threat was looming so high above. Death seems easier more often than not here, but sometimes the hope inside of him is so fucking strong there’s nothing he can do but fight to live on. So he let Eddie whisper his harsh words as he works on Waylon’s wound. Stitching it closed, bandaging it up, voice and tone harsh and violent but hands tender and careful in their work.</p><p>It wasn’t until later, when Eddie came back into the room close to noon, watching Waylon closely as he stared off into space, taking in his surroundings, categorizing new ways to escape, that he saw it. The first little glimmer of something underneath. A person and not a monster. He looked at Waylon like he was confused, lost, but when he came over, hands passing over the binds on his wrists and his legs, they seemed to only be checking the knots.</p><p>There was something quiet about his demeanor. Not necessarily calm, but unnerved. Not angry. Not violent. Not a risk to say something. It was like a different person was there—and Waylon remembers all the movies, all the books and shows when someone is kidnapped, there’s always that other person in the group. The weak one, the one that doesn’t agree, the one that wants to let them go but can’t. Eddie is the only one holding him here, but he seems like that person, just as simultaneously he seems like the horrid monsters who craves inflicting damage on him.</p><p>“Eddie?” he whispers.</p><p>“You should stay quiet.”</p><p>“Eddie.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Let me go,” he says quietly. “Please.”</p><p>“You beg to stay and then want to leave?” he scoffs. “Figures.”</p><p>A hand rests on his leg, pressing into the bandage on his leg. Waylon chokes out a noise, pulling away from him as best as he can.</p><p>“See?” Eddie says. “You’re weak. You wouldn’t survive out there without me. It’s not safe.”</p><p>“And you are?”</p><p>Eddie’s jaw clenches, something flashing behind his eyes as he shakes his head, “Safe than them, darling.”</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>— <em> Safer than all of them, darling. </em></p><p> </p><p>When Eddie comes back, he's ready. He knows what he can do, how to play along. If he offers himself up, maybe Eddie won't hurt him. If he shows Eddie he’s worth trusting, that he can be the warm body beside his, then Eddie won’t hurt him.</p><p>Surely?</p><p>When he gets back, Waylon steels himself, preparing a bashful gaze, flushed cheeks, body turned in the way Lisa always did for him, but she had lingerie and all Waylon has is tattered remains of a jumpsuit. But if he lays facing the door, on his stomach, with his body angled just so—</p><p>"What are you doing, darling?"</p><p>"Waiting for you."</p><p>"You shouldn't put pressure on your injury. You'll hurt yourself worse."</p><p>"Eddie…" he says, forcing his voice soft and coy.</p><p>"What?" he asks, voice angry, annoyed. “What is it now, going to beg me to let go of you again?”</p><p>He realizes he's not good at this. He never has been. Sexual remarks came blunt and straightforward from him. He doesn't know how to imply sex without just telling Eddie that he'll do whatever he wants him to do. But Lisa was always good at it. She could present herself in such a way that she never had to say a dirty word in her life. It was by nature of her appearance, her actions. And it was a simple fact she hardly had to do anything at all for Waylon to want her.</p><p>"Do you want me?" Waylon tries.</p><p>"I have you."</p><p>"But do you<em> want </em> me?"</p><p>Eddie seems to catch on because his eyes move from Waylon's face to his backside, his butt raised, accentuating curves he doesn't really have and resting on weak legs, sore from running, broken from the fail, bleeding from rod so recently pulled from his leg.</p><p>"You should save what little you have left for our wedding night."</p><p>But if Eddie comes closer, he might untie Waylon's hands.Make it easier for Waylon to please him. The door is closed, probably locked, but the key is on Eddie's belt, silver and shiny and begging him to steal it.</p><p>"I need you now."</p><p>Eddie's lips quirk into an amused smile, and something shudders down Waylon's spine. For a while, before he met Lisa, when he was wrestling with who he was and what he wanted, the top on the list being do I want to live at all? He let people like Eddie hurt him. Rough sex meant he has a purpose, and the more it hurt the more he felt like he was getting what he deserved.</p><p>He feels that old thing ignite, wondering briefly how long he would let Eddie touch him before he ran away.</p><p>"You need me?"</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>Eddie moves forward, a hand touching his chin, his thumb tracing Waylon's lips before pressing in on his mouth and Waylon takes it, sucking on it.</p><p>"How badly?"</p><p>More than he thought.</p><p>It’s been a while—</p><p>These last few months working at Murkoff, being unable to even talk to Lisa, to not see her or touch her.</p><p>He’s <em> needy. </em>He’s needy in a way that tells him he wouldn’t mind if this went farther than just getting free. He wouldn’t mind the brief moment that he might have to let Eddie fuck him. He’d enjoy it. He wants it, even. In the time he’s been without Lisa, he’s been even longer without a guy, which was never a problem. He was never tempted. He didn’t want anyone else.</p><p>Until now.</p><p>"Untie me and let me show you."</p><p>Eddie tsks, pulling his hand away and moving behind him, a hand trailing along his back before pulling away. Waylon turns his head to look at him, Eddie pulling a pair of scissors from his pocket. Waylon's body tenses as they draw closer, sharp ends touching the fabric of his jumpsuit.</p><p>"I won't hurt you. Relax."</p><p>He tries. But he can't look away when Eddie cuts his jumpsuit open before switching to his hands and, ripping the fabric down. Not far enough.</p><p>"You want me to please you?" Eddie asks.</p><p>"Yes," he says automatically, feeling Eddie's hands on his thigh, moving upward, touching his cheeks over the fabric of his briefs, carefully avoiding anything <em> vulgar </em> . He arches into the touch, curses himself for immediately thinking <em> fuck the plan. </em></p><p>"You're sure about that?"</p><p>"Y-yes."</p><p>"And you think you deserve it, after running from me? After hurting yourself, darling?"</p><p>Shit.</p><p>"I'm sorry, Eddie. Let me make it up to you."</p><p>"Hm," Eddie replies.</p><p>He's holding the scissors again, the cold metal against his skin, blades cutting his briefs open. It's so fucking cold in this room that losing another layer makes him shiver, his body coiling up.</p><p>"Relax, darling," he repeats.</p><p>Waylon looks away from him, tries to make his body slacken. Eddie's hands are on him, spreading him apart, one finger trailing across his hole.</p><p>"U-untie me," Waylon says quietly, trying to convince himself that right now getting out alive is more important than getting off, but Eddie's hands are warm and it's been so long and the only thing keeping him going while he's trapped in this place is that when he gets out of here, he's never going to leave Lisa's side.</p><p>"I don't think so," Eddie says. "You've been a bad girl."</p><p>"Eddie—"</p><p>The finger against him presses, but doesn't enter. He moves backward against it, knowing it would hurt with nothing to lubricate it, and it disappears immediately. For a moment, when Eddie moves, Waylon thinks he's going to leave, but instead he feels something wet touch him—registers it as Eddie's tongue teasing his hole.</p><p>He wants more. So easily he's thrown the plan out the window, arching into Eddie's touch. The tongue presses further into him, a little gasp coming out of his mouth. No one's ever done this to him, he doesn't know how to react, other than let the noises fall from his lips. He’s never dated a guy before. Every time he had sex with them, it was rushed, quick, hard and painful in back alleys or restrooms. He never thought he deserved to have anything more than that. He never thought he <em> could </em>have more than that. Loving someone that wasn’t a woman meant admitting things he doesn’t have the guts to admit.</p><p>And then Eddie moves back, "That what you want? Me to eat out your cunt more? Make you wet? Tease your clit until you’re nothing but a whimpering mess?"</p><p>"Y-yes."</p><p>"But you ran from me. You disobeyed me. You don’t really think you deserve it, do you, darling?"</p><p>"No," he whispers.</p><p>"Good, because you don't."</p><p>He pushes Waylon's waist down, flattening him against the bed. Pain spirals up his leg, a groan coming out of him while the sound of a belt comes undone.</p><p>"You don't deserve my cock. You don't deserve my love. You deserve nothing, filthy whore."</p><p>Waylon gasps at the feeling of Eddie's dick against him, prodding his entrance. He can't really—with nothing?</p><p>"Eddie, I'm sorry—"</p><p>"I don't need you," he says, sliding against Waylon's backside slowly. His fingers dig into his flesh, hurting him, pinching him enough to make a strangled noise come out of him. Eddie picks up the pace when he thrusts against Waylon, getting off on the contact of skin, cheeks pressed around his length as he moves back and forth with each thrust. "<em> You </em> need <em> me </em>, darling. Not the other way around."</p><p>He's right.</p><p>Eddie is right.</p><p>And the feeling of Eddie fucking him but not fucking him is still turning him on. He raises his hips up, just enough that his cock can rub against the mattress with each of Eddie’s movements. He bites back his noises, doesn't want Eddie to hear how this affects him, afraid he’ll stop. But just the feeling of Eddie moving against his hole makes his breath catch and he can’t stop it. </p><p>Eddie doesn't need him but he's still pushing Waylon closer and closer to cumming, and he only pauses to spit on his palm and wet the space there, out of a tactic to make it smoother or in an attempt to make it last longer. But it changes little. Eddie still cums fast, the hands on Waylon tighten to a bruising-force, cum landing on the back of his jumpsuit, trailed down his crack, coating his hole. Eddie presses his fingers against the opening again, pressing it a little harder than before. He eases in, just a little, and tears spring to Waylon's eyes at how much it hurts. </p><p>"You like that?" Eddie asks. "My seed inside of you?"</p><p>He doesn't reply, only feels the two fingers retreat, gathering the wetness on him, pushing it inside of him. He can't help it. Even with how much it hurts, Waylon still pushes against the fingers, urging them deeper. He's so close to cumming, if Eddie just curled his fingers, pushed them a little deeper—</p><p>"You're a filthy little whore," he says, a hand hitting his backside hard.</p><p>Eddie climbs off of him, rolling Waylon over, forcing his bound wrists above his head and tying them to the metal pole of the headboard. Even if he had been able to walk properly, he can't leave this space now.</p><p>"Think about what you've done, darling. Long and hard."</p><p>He nods, and when Eddie  leaves, Waylon shiftss his body despite the pain, doing his best to rub himself against his thigh or the mattress as best he can, his thoughts jump immediately to Eddie. His tongue in him, teasing him, the feeling of Eddie against him—</p><p>Waylon shoves them away. Tries to think of Lisa. Soft breasts, the pictures she would send him, the tihngs she would say over the phone when they were separated across the country and they both wanted each other. He tries to think of how wet she is when she’s waiting for him, like she’s thought about him for hours, open and willing and waiting.</p><p>But he wants to be fucked, and his thoughts slip back to Eddie fast, no effort taken to build the fantasy. No forcing the images in his head. And he only cums when he thinks of how much it would hurt if Eddie pushed his legs apart and thrust into him with the same anger he had a moment before.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>— <em> He hates himself for it. Giving in. Taking her when he shouldn’t have. But he likes it—how willing she is to offer herself up to him. But he should’ve waited. He should’ve made her wait. Now he knows what she feels like, tastes like, and he wants more.  </em></p><p>
  <em> He can’t go back. Eddie can’t go back to her. He can’t even go back to talk to her, to clean her up properly. He wants her too badly, and spends three hours in his studio, surrounded by his dresses and fabric and pictures while he jerks off again and again, imagining the different ways he’d take her. Against the wall, on the table, by the window where everyone can watch. He thinks about her breasts against his hands, her orgasming on his hand, his cock in his mouth— </em>
</p><p>
  <em> That’s not right. </em>
</p><p><em> That’s not </em> <b> <em>right.</em> </b></p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>When the sun goes down, Eddie comes back, undoes the part of his restraints that hold him to the bed, leaving his hands bound but undoes the ones around his ankles. It’s terrifying, the way he grabs at Waylon, pulling him away from the bed, eyes searching his face, anger hidden beneath it.</p><p>In the time that he’s been gone, guilt and shame have washed over him. Hating himself for giving in, hating himself for asking, for wanting. And now when Eddie touches him he wants to recoil, curl up tight, close his eyes and wait for the need to cry to pass.</p><p>“You’re filthy.”</p><p>Waylon doesn’t reply. It’s better to stay quiet, he thinks, until he can gauge what he’s allowed to say. Being cruel, returning insults when he’s in this position, it will only make it worse. But he wants to ask—</p><p>
  <em> What will you do with me? What is going to happen to me? </em>
</p><p>Eddie picks him up, carrying him like a bride from the room and down the hallway. It seems like they go forever, seems like they go too far. The place isn’t silent. There are always distant screams and cries for help, but they aren’t close by. There is no threat near them, but the emptiness and the distance make him only assume they’re getting closer to one. Eddie stops in a dark room, laying Waylon down on cold tile. A moment later, a candle lights, turning the dark room into a dimly illuminated space. A shower stall, the wall between it and the one beside it broken down. Eddie leans forward, pulling at the fabric of his jumpsuit. Waylon jerks away, hitting the wall behind him, a hiss coming out between his teeth.</p><p>“Hold still, darling.”</p><p>“Don’t—”</p><p>“What a change of heart,” Eddie says. “You begged me just a few hours ago to undress you.”</p><p>“I wanted that. I wanted it then.”</p><p>“And you don’t now?”</p><p>“No,” Waylon says. The word comes out solid, like a stone. Firm, unavoidable.</p><p>Eddie looks at him, like he hates him, like this isn’t what he wanted to hear, “Well, you need to be cleaned. I won’t be having my bride sitting in her filth like this.”</p><p>Waylon looks away, feels the hand on his jumpsuit again, tugging more harshly this time. His stomach is in knots, nerves fluttering through him, destroying everything in their path. He was never one to cry. It always took so much effort for him. His tears were buried away ever since he was a child, ever since it was beaten out of him. <em> Stop being such a bitch. Stop fighting. It’ll hurt worse if you fight. </em>But the way Eddie pulls on his clothes brings them to the surface, and he chokes them back with a strangled sound.</p><p>“Darling?”</p><p><em> “Please </em> don’t touch me.”</p><p>“I’m just trying to bathe you,” Eddie says. “You’re disgusting.”</p><p>
  <em> And what about you? </em>
</p><p>“You’re not—”</p><p>“No,” Eddie says with a disgusted noise. “You’re already a whore. You need to save what little is left of you for marriage.”</p><p>He nods, slowly, disbelieving. He doesn’t fight Eddie’s hands when they pull the jumpsuit to his arms, when the scissors come out to cut them away to get past the bindings on his wrists. He fights the urge to kick Eddie in the face when he tugs them past his ankles. It isn’t until Eddie’s hands come to his briefs that he pulls away again, hitting his head on the tile again. The need to jerk away overcoming the common logic that a solid wall is behind his head. The new pain mingles with the old, the headache he has never seeming to go away. He used to get terrible migraines when he was younger, and now it’s like they’re coming back to haunt him, weaken him when he needs his strength.</p><p>“You need to calm down, darling. I’m not going to touch you unless you want to be touched.”</p><p>“You’re touching me now,” he whispers, the small angry child in him cropping up before he can bite the words back.</p><p>“You think you’re smart, don’t you?”</p><p>
  <em> Not smart enough to get away. </em>
</p><p>“Just leave them on, Eddie, please,” he whispers.</p><p>“No,” he says. “They’re ripped. They’re dirty.You’re going to change them. Stop fighting me, or I <em> will </em>hurt you.”</p><p>He has to force oxygen into his body, has to make himself breathe out again, “Okay.”</p><p>“Good.”</p><p>Eddie pulls the briefs down, exposes him entirely, but his eyes don’t settle on the place, which makes it a little easier for him to allow Eddie to touch him. He saw what Eddie did to those other men. He heard their screams. His own joined the mix. It’s only luck now that he still has something to chop off.</p><p>“The water is cold,” Eddie continues. “I’m sorry, darling, I know our circumstances aren’t ideal.”</p><p>He nods along, watching Eddie carefully as he moves. A dirty sponge ducked into a bucket of water that doesn’t even look that clean, either, but when Eddie brushes it across his skin, it wipes away some of the grime and the dirt. It feels better, even if it doesn’t feel <em> clean. </em></p><p>Eddie doesn’t treat him gently, but he puts care into what he does. He isn’t a perfect gentlemen, despite thinking he is. Dirty water goes up Waylon’s nose, the sponge is rough against his skin, and when it glides over his wound, he winces but Eddie doesn’t seem to notice or if he does, he doesn’t care. The water that splashes over his hair is ice cold, and the fingers that pull through it are rough, and even without being able to touch it, Waylon can tell whatever product was used to shampoo it is oily and not entirely washed out, but he doesn’t say anything. This bath is already a wish granted that he didn’t know he had. He’s only been running around down here for two nights, but being semi-clean has made him feel infinitely better, even though he knows it won’t last.</p><p>Eddie dresses him in a patient uniform, only untying Waylon’s hands when he has to, redoing the knots as soon as he can.</p><p>“I’ll make you a dress,” Eddie says, smoothing the creases of the uniform. “I would’ve had one ready, but your frame is much different than I was used to.”</p><p>“What if I don’t want a dress?” Waylon asks.</p><p>Eddie glares at him, turning his head to the side, “I hope you’ll at least wear one at the wedding, darling.”</p><p>“When is it?”</p><p>“As soon as you recover from…” Eddie’s gaze flickers down.</p><p>
  <em> No. </em>
</p><p>“And—And when will that be?”</p><p>“After your leg heals.”</p><p>“That’ll be a while, won’t it?” Waylon asks quietly. “At least a few months.”</p><p>“Unfortunately,” Eddie’s hand comes to his chin, tilting his head upward. “Don’t you have something to say, darling?”</p><p>“I can’t wait?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>Waylon glances behind him, toward the candle flickering out beside the basket of supplies that Eddie had brought. “Thank you.”</p><p>“You’re welcome, darling. You’ll learn your manners soon,” he says, squeezing Waylon’s arm. “And that’s a promise.”</p><p>They return to his room, Eddie carrying him back to his bed, laying him down, tying him back up again. When he leaves, Waylon lets out a breath, the anxiety in him unfurling, letting his muscles relax, his eyes close.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <em> — She’s pretty when she sleeps. No fight left in her. She seemed so scared before. Pulling away from him, frightened, not wanting his hand near her. Afraid Eddie would hurt her. Eddie wouldn’t hurt her. Not unless she makes him. But that fear, in her eyes? Eddie knows that kind of fear. He’s felt that kind of fear. </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>He was watching Waylon sleep. He knows that even before he opens his eyes, turns his head to look toward the window to gauge the time. The sun behind Eddie is just barely rising, turning his form into a darkened silhouette he can’t read, but always feels the presence of. He can’t escape him.</p><p>“Eddie?” he says tentatively, terrified.</p><p>“Has someone hurt you?” Eddie asks, and Waylon hears it in his voice. Quiet, scared. Human. “Has someone touched you?”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>Eddie takes a step forward to the end of the bed, the light hitting his face, the subtle shift in his features, “You’re not a whore, are you?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“You didn’t let them take it. They stole it. Didn’t they?”</p><p>“Take what?” he asks, his voice a whisper.</p><p>He knows what Eddie is going to say even before he says it.</p><p>“Your purity.”</p><p>How did he know?</p><p>Did he see it?</p><p>Did he see through all those careful walls he put up throughout his entire life, building up ways to protect himself, trying to figure out how to keep himself from crying, to turn his skin to stone, his movements blocky and robotic? The only person that ever knew was Lisa, and only on that night that he broke, a year into their marriage, a poor movie choice, something he couldn’t have foreseen. Shaking and trembling—</p><p>
  <em> He was supposed to be my friend. </em>
</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>Eddie’s face hardens, “Not here?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“If they were, I’d kill them,” he says. “You know that, don’t you, darling? I’d protect you.”</p><p>“I know you would.”</p><p>“You’re mine,” he says, waits for Waylon to nod in agreement. “You know I would never do that to you, right, darling?”</p><p>He doesn’t, and he doesn’t know if he believes the words when Eddie says them, but then he sees the anger on Eddie’s face. The fury that doesn’t just come from wanting to protect someone they love, or believe they love. This is different.</p><p>Is this what Eddie saw when he looked at Waylon before?</p><p>A traumatized boy, disgusted by touch? Craving sex to a point where little else matters, hating himself for it after.</p><p>“Eddie, you know I wouldn’t do that to you, either, right?” he says, his voice shaking. He doesn’t like this. He feels guilty, exploiting this new thing he thinks he’s discovered. “You can untie me. I won’t hurt you.”</p><p>“No,” he says, and the shift is finished now. The humanity is gone. “You’ll hurt yourself, though.”</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>— <em> He wants to let her go. He wants to trust her. But he can’t. He can see the fear in her eyes, even when she looks at him. She’s still terrified. She’ll run away. She’ll get hurt if she runs away. Eddie won’t be able to live with himself if this one gets hurt any worse than she already has. </em></p><p>
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</p><p>The dress isn’t white, and it certainly isn’t the soft satin that Waylon had expected when Eddie lamented about it, showing Waylon sketch after sketch of various one before he started to make it.</p><p>“Since you don’t want to wear dresses, I can devote all my time to making the best wedding gown possible, would you like that darling?”</p><p>Waylon had nodded, had chosen one that reminded him of the dress that Lisa wore to their wedding. A big skirt, a bodice with long sleeves. If there had been lace and pearls available, they would’ve decorated it. It would’ve glinted in the light like he was wearing diamonds. Eddie tells him this, before frowning and apologizing. <em> It would’ve been beautiful. </em></p><p>He comes back a week later with what he refers to as a <em> mock-up, </em>though it’s clear it’ll be the final thing. Waylon is just pleased that Eddie can pour so much energy into making this, of needing it to be absolutely perfect for the wedding. It’ll put it off as long as possible. But there’s still this brief fear he has when Eddie comes into the room with it, of what’ll happen once he puts it on.</p><p>“Isn’t it bad luck for the groom to see the bride in the dress before the wedding?”</p><p>“Are you superstitious, darling?”</p><p>“N-No,” Waylon says. “Just—I want it to be perfect.”</p><p>“It’ll be perfect but only if I can see it on you. I need to know what to fix.”</p><p>And so he stands,a hand pressed against the wall to help steady him as Eddie undresses him and steps into the dress. Careful ribbons pulled taut over the back. It would’ve been a beautiful dress if it had been made properly, with the fabric it should’ve had. But instead, it’s made of the rough cotton sheets from the beds. A soft pale blue that almost looks white in the day, but looks gray in the dark. It doesn’t lay around his body the way that it should. His chest is too flat to fill out the bodice. His arms are too muscular for the sleeves. But Eddie doesn’t seem to get angry with him about this, and when he touches Waylon, taking notes about the things to fix, pinning things into place, Waylon is acutely aware that he doesn’t think Eddie sees him as a person right now.</p><p>He doesn’t think Eddie ever really saw him as a person, but especially in this moment, with how quiet he is, how still Waylon is standing, that Eddie probably couldn’t tell the difference between Waylon and a dress form.</p><p>“It’s not right,” Eddie says quietly. “I don’/t know how to make it right.”</p><p>
  <em> There’s fabric stores. Out in the real world. Jewels and pearls and real ribbon, not strips of fabric. There’s satin and silk and a beautiful array of white fabrics to choose from. Everything ranging from cheap to diamond-worthy. </em>
</p><p>He could say this. He could put it into words, manipulate Eddie to let him out of here, just for the dress, but it’s too soon. If Waylon tried to say this now, Eddie would likely brush him off. He’d see through it for what it is.</p><p>So he lies.</p><p>“I love it, Eddie.”</p><p>“Of course you do,” Eddie says, standing up. “You’d support me in anything, darling, but really, it’s—it’s not right.”</p><p>“Maybe you should rest,” Waylon says. “Give yourself a break. Look at it in the morning with fresh eyes.”</p><p>“You’re right, darling. In the morning.”</p><p>He turns Waylon around, his hands undoing the ribbon closing the dress, letting it fall to the floor around his feet. A hand touches his side lightly, tracing down to his waist, resting on his hip, turning him around slowly. Eddie is close, breath touching his face, the hand on Waylon’s skin so warm in the freezing room. It makes him tense up, it makes him curve towards Eddie, and he reaches out instinctively, holding onto Eddie to keep from falling.</p><p>“You could make anything beautiful,” he says quietly, tipping Waylon’s chin up.</p><p>For a split moment of fear when Eddie moves towards him, he thinks he’s going to be kissed. The fear is a mix of <em> don’t let Eddie kiss me </em> and <em> please let him kiss me. </em>He can’t decide what he wants. He is lonely and afraid and touch starved, and how gentle he’s being right now is something nice to smooth over the damage that was caused when Eddie fucked him. Or half-fucked him.</p><p>But Eddie doesn’t leave the kiss against Waylon’s lips, he brushes it across his forehead before he helps Waylon get dressed again, before the restraints are tied once more, before he’s left alone in the room with his heart beating in his chest.</p><p>
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</p><p>
  <em> — She’s a liar. She lied about the dress. It’s horrible. It looks horrible. She deserves better. </em>
</p><p>
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</p><p>It’s a routine like this:</p><p>Two weeks. Every day, every morning, Eddie is there, watching over him. Sometimes he comes by later in the day. When the sun is at it’s brightest, usually Eddie is the quietest. His words soft, barely anything spoken at all, barely calling Waylon <em> darling </em> . He’s stopped calling him a whore, though. No more demeaning <em> slut </em> or <em> bitch </em>thrown at him. Waylon can’t tell if it’s because he knows now about the violation in his past or if it’s because Waylon has started to catch onto what he’s allowed to say and do. The restraints are loosened one week close to noon. They’re undone for Waylon to eat by himself, for the first time, rather than being fed by Eddie’s hand. No utensils given to him, so he eats whatever the unknown food is with his hands and without question, pressing the stringy meat into his mouth, trying not to gag on the taste of it. When Eddie does the restraints up again, they leave enough room for his arms to wiggle, for Waylon to have a little control, although it means nothing. He still can’t reach anything, can’t do anything, but at least the ropes aren’t digging into his skin so roughly.</p><p>He’s had two baths, and Eddie has only gotten marginally softer with him, maybe in exchange for the fact Waylon doesn’t fight him when he pulls his clothes off, even lets him take the briefs away without another word. He can’t tell if Eddie avoids his groin if it’s out of disgust for his penis or if it’s out of respect for his choice. He thinks it’s a little bit of both. He hopes it’s a little bit of both, though the former tends to feed fears into the surgery that seems steadily approaching. Each day Waylon gets stronger, the date of getting castrated comes a little closer, and with that, his likely death. There’s little hope in him surviving it. Even if he did live past the intial cut, Eddie isn’t a surgeon. The necessary aspects of his parts would be sewn closed inside of him.</p><p>Eddie helps him to the bathroom, helps him around the room when the wound has healed and he needs to build the muscles and teach them how to hold his weight again. It’s not a horrific amount of damage that’s been done to him, but it’s hard to stand on his own at first, and after a while, it starts to hurt, and if Eddie isn’t there to help him or catch him, he’ll fall to the floor with tears in his eyes from the pain of it.</p><p>There’s been many times when Eddie is standing a few yards away, like a father teaching his baby to walk, beckoning Waylon toward him, and he slips forward, his leg giving out, crashing against Eddie’s body and holding onto him tight, tears in his eyes at how weak and pathetic he’s become.</p><p>He doesn’t like relying on Eddie, but he wonders sometimes if their quiet, brief conversations in the day mean anything at all, especially when they lead to Eddie looking out the window, never at him.</p><p>“Eddie?”</p><p>“Hm?”</p><p>“Can you come over here?” Waylon asks quietly. He won’t be able to run. He needs Eddie to trust him, if he wants to get away. He needs to exploit whatever is happening between them to get out of here. “Untie me. Just my hands, don’t worry.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“I want to hold you.”</p><p>Eddie turns around, looking at him, curious, unbelieving. But he comes to Waylon’s side anyway, undoes the restraints on his wrists. For the first time in a long time, his hands are free. There’s no food in front of him, there’s no shirt being pulled over his head. If he had enough room to be prepared with a weapon, he could use it against Eddie now, but the room is empty of everything but the necessities. Just a chair in the corner, a surgeon’s tray for a nightstand, a bed with a lumpy mattress. He needs Eddie. He only has one plan, and it’s convincing Eddie to let him out of this room, and eventually, he thinks he can make his way out of here. He was almost gone before. Before he fell down and hurt his leg, before Eddie dragged him back to the room, telling him how stupid he was. He was so close to getting out.</p><p>“Darling?”</p><p>“I need to ask you something,” Waylon says, his voice shaking as he reaches for him, a hand resting on Eddie’s face. The most he’s ever touched him. He tries to be soft and gentle, and it’s easy. He’s too scared to touch Eddie too much. He’s seen him lash out and angry, even if it hasn’t happened since he woke up here. Eddie’s fury has died down so immensely that sometimes it only fuels the paranoia that it will come back tenfold.</p><p>“What is it?”</p><p>“The surgery,” he says, using the word to save himself the humiliation of what it entails. “You want to hurt me.”</p><p>“I want to <em> fix </em> you.”</p><p>“Eddie, you’ll hurt me if you do it.”</p><p>“But you’ll heal.”</p><p>“Physically,” he says. “I’ll heal physically.”</p><p>“But not here,” Eddie says, resting a hand against his chest. “Is that what you’re saying? I’ll destroy you?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“You think I would ever hurt you like that? You think I would destroy you like that?”</p><p>He clenches his teeth, steels himself for whatever’s going to happen. But Waylon has to risk this. He has to ask. He has to try and change his mind. He would rather die and be abused now than suffer later, “I need you to change your mind about it, Eddie. I know you don’t think of it as hurtting me, but it will. You <em> will </em>destroy me. I want to be perfect for you, but I won’t if you make me do this. And I know you don’t want to hurt me.”</p><p>“I’m—”</p><p>“Fixing me. You think you’re fixing me. But you won’t be. You’ll break me,” he whispers, and he wills tears to his eyes, and they come easily. They come a lot easier now, and they come even easier when he knows how much effort it has taken to hold them back. “Please, Eddie, promise me you won’t do it. Promise me you won’t hurt me. I don’t need to be fixed, Eddie. Let me be enough for you like this. I just want to be enough for you.”</p><p>Eddie watches him, and Waylon lets the tears spill over, messy and hot and stinging his cheeks. There was a brief flicker of monster there, of anger, but it’s gone now, and arm wrapping around Waylon’s waist, pulling him close, “Okay. I promise, darling. I promise.”</p><p>
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</p><p>— <em> He won’t hurt her. He won’t hurt him more than she’s already been hurt. It’s his job as a husband to protect her. He won’t break him. He won’t fix her. He’ll just be there for her. </em></p><p>
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</p><p>Eddie leaves the restraints for his hands off, but the ones around his ankles stay, and Waylon does little to mess with them. It’s still too hard to walk on his own to bother undoing them, and he thinks Eddie must know he wouldn’t get far if they were gone, but he doesn’t want to risk getting yelled at if they’re caught undone. He is still a monster at night, even if the name calling is gone, even if all he does is seem to look at Waylon and study all the ways to take him apart. When he comes back later that night, the door opens and closes quietly—always quietly, though that isn’t an indicator of no rage—and he crosses his arms, like he’s waiting for Waylon to say something.</p><p>“Yes, Eddie?”</p><p>“You’ve ruined everything,” he says. “Because of this. Because you want that <em> vulgar </em>thing. Our wedding is ruined. Our honeymoon is ruined. Are you happy now? Are you happy, darling?”</p><p>He says the word <em> darling </em> like he used to say <em> whore/bitch/slut. </em>He says it so venomously, that Waylon feels it like a slap across his face. </p><p>“I’m sorry, Eddie.”</p><p>“Then change your mind,” he yells. “Change your mind if you’re so fucking sorry!”</p><p>“No,” Waylon says, wishing for it to come out defiant, strong, angry, but it only comes out weak, pitiful.</p><p>Eddie seems to still take it for an answer, because he leaves, the door closing quietly behind him, but on the other side of the wall, he hears the crashing and the clattering of things. Something breaking, wood splintering.</p><p>But it’s not Waylon. He isn’t breaking Waylon.</p><p>At least there’s that.</p><p>
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</p><p>— <em> She’s not a bitch. She’s not a bitch for making this decision. But she is. She’s a whore, too. What good can come of that thing? What good does she have of it, when Eddie will never touch it? Who is she going to let touch it instead? Is it going to be her own hand, or some stranger’s mouth? She is a whore. He was wrong. Just because she was violated doesn’t mean she’s not a slut. </em></p><p><em> — </em>She’s not a bitch. She’s not a whore. She’s not a slut. She’s not—</p><p>She’s not a she. He’s just trying to survive. He’s begging and pleading Eddie and if he was stronger he could help, but he’s weak. He’s just as weak as Waylon is, pushed under the surface. </p><p>
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</p><p>“I want to apologize,” Eddie says. “For last night.”</p><p>He looks exhausted. He always looks tired, but this is a different kind of tired. The kind that comes from barely grabbing an hour here or there for an extended period of time. Waylon remembers those nights from college. Trying to get good grades,attempting to not keep the cycle of being pulled back to his childhood friend holding him down with an arm against his throat.</p><p>“Did you sleep?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“You need to sleep, Eddie.”</p><p>He closes his eyes, looks away. The light bathes his face, showing the tired circles in exaggerated form, sharpening every angle of his face. <em> Human.  </em></p><p>“Come,” Waylon says, unable to stop himsel. He past the bed beside him, like Eddie is a cat that can come curl up beside him and purr, happy and content. “Come sleep beside me.”</p><p>“Are you sure, darling?”</p><p>“I’m sure.”</p><p>Eddie comes to the bed, pausing by Waylon’s feet to cut loose the ties around his ankles. His hands are still free, and Waylon reaches out to him, pulling Eddie closer as he lays beside him on the small bed, taking up so much space that Waylon has little choice but to lay ontop of him. His leg hurts laying like this, but he doesn’t say anything. He lets an arm rest against Eddie’s chest, lets Eddie’s arm around his waist pull him tight like he’s afraid he’ll fall off the bed, which he might. It’s too small for both of them. Some would argue it’s too small for Eddie at all. His mass never stops surprising Waylon. His thick muscular arms, broad shoulders. Waylon feels so tiny in Eddie’s arms. Like a doll that could be thrown against the wall and shattered into a hundred pieces.</p><p>“I don’t know how to stop it,” he says quietly, words whispered into the top of Waylon’s head</p><p>“Your anger?”</p><p>Eddie doesn’t reply. He just holds Waylon a little closer.</p><p>Eddie falls asleep first. A quiet thing, resting so close to him. Nothing scary about the gentle rise and fall of his chest, the quiet snores. It lulls Waylon to sleep, too. Stealing Eddie’s warmth, pressed close beside him. When he wakes, Eddie is gone, and he isn’t even sure if Eddie was ever there to begin with, because he doesn’t know how he slipped away without Waylon noticing, but he’s left behind a set of clothes. One of the shirts that Waylon always sees him wear, and it still smells like him. Blood and dirt and something underneath that’s sticking to Waylon’s skin and the bed beside him. His hands are left untied, and he changes the shirt out quickly, pulling it close, pressing his face against the fabric, wondering why he wishes Eddie was still here, wondering how he can find so much comfort and satisfication in such a filthy smell.</p><p>
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</p><p>— <em> He wants to kill her. He wants to save him. He wants him dead. He wants her broken and bleeding. He wants him alive. He wants to marry her, he wants to make him his. His dreams show every way he could carve the body open, shows how the blood would feel on his hands, shows him what the taste of his lips would be like. It shows him his past. Eddie as a little boy, happy, unbroken, helping his mother sew the ripped holes of shirts and dresses closed again. It shows him his past, destroyed, tears in his eyes, screaming, not knowing how to hold himself together. Here. Ending up here. Only it was worse. It was worse being here. Until him. Until the Engine. Until it gave him a break. Gave him the knife to hurt instead of be hurt by. </em></p><p>
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</p><p>Eddie doesn't visit at any normal routine, outside of meals. He disappears for long periods of time over night on some days, and others he hardly leaves Waylon alone, stitching up ripped clothes or staring out his window at something in the courtyard. Today when he comes into the room, the sun is starting to set, and Waylon’s eyes haven’t quite adjusted to the darkness, especially when Eddie closes the tattered curtains over the windows, blocking out what little light is left. He’s blinking in the dark, trying to force himself to see what’s in front of him, his body tensing when he hears Eddie come closer, when hands touch his body. First resting on his chest, then moving upwards, trailing across his face and his arms before his ties are undone.</p><p>“You’ve been gone a while,” Waylon says quietly, when Eddie doesn’t break the silence for him. “Is everything okay?”</p><p>“I was looking for something. For you,” Eddie goes quiet again. “Something to help you walk. A suitable cane. You have such a hard time… you shouldn’t have run from me, darling.”</p><p>“I know. Can you open the curtains, Eddie?” He doesn’t like the dark. Especially here. Especially with Eddie.</p><p>“I don’t want you to see.”</p><p>“See what? What happened?”</p><p>“I told you I’m not the dangerous one here. They would’ve come for you. They would’ve hurt you.”</p><p>“Eddie—”</p><p>“Will you help me, darling?”</p><p>“Of course,” he says quietly, searching the dark to make out his face.</p><p> </p><p>— <em> It hurts. But it helps that it’s her. </em></p><p>
  <em> Him. It helps that it’s him. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>The curtains are opened again, delicate golden light joined by a few candles. Each one making the wounds on Eddie’s body a little more visible. A slash across his cheek, another over his forearm. They’re not deep, but they’ll scar. Eddie sets up a row of things in front of Waylon, only after he told him repeatedly that he needed to keep them clean.</p><p>“How are you going to protect me if your arm gets infected and you have to cut it off?” Waylon says.</p><p>“I’ll find a way.”</p><p>“<em> Tsk,”  </em>Waylon says quietly, echoing Eddie from weeks before. “Let me help. You wanted me to help.”</p><p>“It’ll hurt.”</p><p>“Of course it’ll hurt. But not for long. I’ll be as gentle as I can, Eddie.”</p><p>“Promise?”</p><p>“Promise.”</p><p>Eddie is good at handling pain, but Waylon sees it flicker across his face when he disinfects the wound like Eddie had done to him. He doesn’t know how to stitch the skin closed. He doesn’t trust the needle and thread that Eddie used on him. It’s a wonder that his leg hasn’t started to rot off, but maybe he’s just pretending it hasn’t. They’re all under their own delusions. Maybe that’s his. There is something both more comforting and more horrifying at the thought that Waylon starting to care, just the smallest bit, for Eddie. He would prefer for the feelings to be real. At least then he could blame himself. It would be easier to blame himself. It always has been.</p><p>Eddie doesn’t move when Waylon bandages his arm, when he presses butterfly bandages on his cheek. He’s quiet, jaw clenched but not in the angry-violent way he usually does.</p><p>“I like you like this,” Waylon says quietly, a thumb passing gently over his cheek, just underneath the cut.</p><p>“What? Injured? Weak?”</p><p>“Soft,” Waylon replies. “Quiet.”</p><p>“I’m not soft.”</p><p>“It’s a compliment, Eddie.”</p><p>“It’s not. You’re saying I’m weak. I’m not weak.”</p><p>Waylon reaches his other hand out to touch Eddie’s side, bringing him closer so he can nuzzle his face against his neck. Part of him wants to do this, and he lets it, driven by the knowledge that it’ll placate him, “I mean it well. <em> Soft </em>as in gentle, tender. Not weak. You’re kind.”</p><p>“You want me to be like this more often, darling?”</p><p>“Yes,” he says quietly. “Please.”</p><p>
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</p><p>— <em> He likes Eddie like this. Soft. Quiet. Like he was before. Before the people he trusted tore him apart and turned him into someone that was wrong and mutilated and kept destroying himself until they locked him up here. He likes Eddie like </em> <b> <em>this</em> </b> <em> . Who he was before. Who he still is, somewhere underneath it all. He likes Eddie, and Eddie didn’t think that was possible. He didn’t think that anyone could ever like him again. </em></p><p>
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</p><p>Normally, Eddie has a rhythm. The nicer he is usually dictates how completely opposite he’ll be the next time he comes to visit Waylon. But this time, when he comes to sit by Waylon on the bed, when he rids Waylon of the restraints without being asked, he seems more lucid than he ever has been, not pulling Waylon closer to him, not being harsh, not being cruel. He rubs lotion on Waylon’s wrists and ankle, the redness being soothed away more by his touch than by it. It smells like oranges, citrus-y, reminding him of orange floats when he was a kid. The container Eddie takes from is a tiny bottle, cut open with just the dregs left, pass over Waylon’s hands, eased up his arms. Waylon leans into him, his own hands pressing the remnants of the lotion against Eddie’s.</p><p>“Must be uncomfortable,” Eddie says quietly. “Staying like that all day.”</p><p>“It is.”</p><p>“He’s scared you’ll run,” he replies. “Or I’d keep you like this. Free.”</p><p>“Who’s ‘he’, Eddie?”</p><p>“Don’t worry about it,” he says, shaking his head. “Can I ask you something? Do you… remember… before?”</p><p>“Before?”</p><p>“Before coming here? Do you remember anything about before this?”</p><p>“Bits and pieces.” Bits and pieces being erased every moment he lingers here.</p><p>“We’ve met before,” Eddie says quietly. “I remember that. I remember asking you to save me.”</p><p>So does Waylon. Fists banging against the glass. The pleading in his eyes, how close he looked to crying. His name was imprinted on his head then. Seeing it on the screens, the files. He wasn’t the first to beg for help, he wouldn’t have been the last, but he was the last one Waylon saw. The desperation. It haunted him. It still does. He can still see where his face wants to pull back into the scream for help.</p><p>“I tried,” he whispers, a hand coming up, tracing over his wound gently. Eddie turns his head, catching Waylon’s wrist and pressing a kiss against his palm. “I was going to expose this place and get you out of here, Eddie.”</p><p>“All of us, or just me?”</p><p>“All of you.”</p><p>He doesn’t know if that’s the right answer or not,  he just knows when Eddie looks at him and smiles, it’s not the sinister smile that he had before. It’s not the maniacal one that wanted to hurt him. It’s the soft smile of a friend. <em> Of a lover. </em></p><p>“You said someone hurt you before this. Who was that?”</p><p>Waylon shakes his head, “I don’t want you to know about that.”</p><p>“Please. I won’t judge you. You know that, right?”</p><p>“I don’t want to cry in front of you, Eddie. I don’t want you to see me like that.”</p><p>“Weak,” Eddie says quietly. Waylon nods. “You’re not weak. You’re survived it. You’re still surviving.”</p><p>“Surviving you?” Waylon asks, cautiously.</p><p>He nods. “I’m trying… really hard to keep you safe.”</p><p><em> Safer than them. </em>Waylon is still alive. He was right.</p><p>“I don’t know your name,” Eddie says. “You never told me your name.”</p><p>“Waylon.”</p><p>“Waylon,” he echoes.</p><p>“You know I’m… not… a girl, right?”</p><p>“I know. It doesn’t matter to me,” Eddie says, his hand touching his chest, but it moves to his neck, like he’s choking himself. “It matters to him, though.”</p><p>“Eddie—”</p><p>“I should go.”</p><p>“Don’t,” Waylon says, holding onto him. “Please. Stay. I’ll tell you what happened to me.”</p><p>“It’s not necessary, Waylon.”</p><p>“Are you afraid it’ll ruin me for you? For him?”</p><p>Eddie shakes his head, “No. You’re perfect.”</p><p><em> Perfect. </em>Now he’s perfect. Before, he was someone that needed to be carved away into nothingness.</p><p>“It was my friend,” Waylon says, pushing the words out fast, it’s the only way to say it. Get out it out before they can catch up to him. “He told me it would be fun and when I asked him to stop he slapped me. He said I needed to stop being a bitch. I didn’t want him, but I thought I loved him until that happened. He was the first person I ever loved. And he was the first person that ever hurt me.”</p><p>“Did anyone else?”</p><p><em> You. </em> Jeremy Blaire, sending guards after him to beat him up, to throw him in a room to watch the Engine. The scientist that licked his face and did God knows what else when he was too drugged up to know. <em> Frank, </em>chasing after him, wanting to cut him open and eat him alive.</p><p>He was hurt before. Just not in the same sense. Waylon consented to whatever happened the first night he was held in this room. He wanted it. He liked it. But it still hurt him in the way all the men he slept with in an effort to destroy himself hurt him. Because he always hoped they would stop, that they would hold him and tell him he was—</p><p>
  <em> Perfect. </em>
</p><p>To touch him the way Eddie is touching him now, one hand on his cheek, brushing tears away that have finally caught up to what he’s saying.</p><p>“Not in the same way,” Waylon says quietly. “Everything pales in comparison.”</p><p>“Did you kill him?” Eddie asks.</p><p>Waylon chokes out a laugh, “No. I wish. He was arrested seven years ago. He… hurt other people. Kids. I could’ve stopped him.”</p><p>“You blame yourself for what he did?”</p><p>“Every day.”</p><p>“You shouldn’t. It’s not your fault.”</p><p>“And is this yours?” Waylon asks, touching his chin, finger brushing over his bottom lip. “You keep saying <em> he. </em>Who is he?”</p><p>“The devil, maybe.” <em> The Walrider?  </em></p><p>“Eddie…”</p><p>“I don’t know how to explain it to you. He’s me but he’s not me. I can’t stop him.”</p><p>“But you’re trying.”</p><p>“Yes,” Eddie says quietly, leaning forward, pressing a kiss against the top of Waylon’s head. “I have to go. I can’t stay any longer.”</p><p>“Will you be back?”</p><p>He nods, leaving Waylon behind on the bed, “I’ll always come back for you, darling. Waylon. I’ll come back for you, Waylon.”</p><p>
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</p><p>— <em> He loves him. He knows it’s not a real love. It’s an idealized love. He knows that. But he knows this part of him is stronger than the other part of him. The need to keep him alive is stronger than the need to defile her, to press kisses against her flat chest, to put a ring on her finger just so he can take her and mark her and make her his. </em></p><p>
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</p><p>"Will you cut my hair for me, Eddie?"</p><p>He reaches out, touching Waylon's hair. It's grown so long during his time here. He hasn't paid enough attention to it when he was working. Mount Massive didn't give him much time for his own life. It's not even necessarily long hair, just long for him, long for his own preferences. </p><p>Eddie leaves without saying anything  and he's gone for so long that when he comes back with the scissors, back with the stern, angry expression, Waylon is terrified that the blades are going to cut into his skin.</p><p>"Hold still."</p><p>He does, letting Eddie chop away, slowly, the hair getting a little shorter.</p><p>"It won't look as nice," Eddie says quietly. "With the veil."</p><p>"I prefer it this way."</p><p>"I don't. Don't you care about what I want, darling?"</p><p>"Yes. Of course I do."</p><p>"Only because you're afraid of me."</p><p>"I want you to be happy, Eddie," he says, and it's not a lie. Not even close. Eddie being happy keeps the danger at bay. And he likes it when he’s happy. Sometimes he sits beside Waylon and rubs his back or runs his hand through his hair and it’s the kind of comforting quiet touches that make him forget where he is.</p><p>"Prove it. Because all you've done is ruin us."</p><p>Waylon waits until the scissors are set down, waits until Eddie is in front of him, brushing stray strands away. The anger in his voice isn't present on his face, and his hands trail lightly down his cheeks, tipping his chin upward. Waylon looks up at him, scared.</p><p>"Eddie?"</p><p>"Waylon," he returns in a whisper.</p><p>The name sends a tremble up his spine. The only times Waylon has heard Eddie frightened is when he says his name. </p><p>"Untie me, Eddie."</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"I want to prove that I want you happy."</p><p>The restraints come undone, and Waylon moves slow. His hands touching Eddie's chest, moving down, resting on the waistband of his pants. There was a split second decision, a moment ago, when Eddie said his name. He could've left it at that. Could've had Eddie leave him alone. And then his name, quiet and breathless, and it changed. </p><p>But he does want him. <em> This </em> Eddie. Not the Eddie from before, who's violence he craved in its familiarity, but based on how needy he is </p><p>Waylon undoes the belt, the button, the zipper. He watches Eddie who watches him with hungry eyes. He wonders what's going on through that head of his. Waylon pauses with his hands holding onto fabric, ready to pull down.</p><p>"Do you want me to stop, Eddie?"</p><p>"No."</p><p>So he continues. The pants pushed down to knees, falling down to the floor, carefully stepped out of, kicked aside with socks and shoes.</p><p>This isn't even close to the first time that Waylon has been with a man, but it's been a while, and he's not quite used to this. Eddie feels bigger than he expected when Waylon presses his hand against the fabric, brushing his finger along the clothed length gently, feeling it respond. He didn’t see him before, and his hand tries to guess at how big he is, because he feels large. Impossibly large.</p><p>Waylon is impatient, but he likes having, for once, the ability to torture Eddie right back, and he makes sure when he touches him, that it's light, gentle, that it's Eddie moving into the touch and not him. He makes a small noise, his hand closing over Waylon's, pressing it against him.</p><p>"Don't make me wait, darling."</p><p>Waylon looks up to him, the clenched jaw, the narrowed eyes.</p><p>"Say my name, Eddie."</p><p>"W-what?" Flustered, for once. </p><p>
  <em> "Say my name." </em>
</p><p>Eddie is silent, Waylon moves his finger against the briefs like a reminder.</p><p>"Waylon," he let's out in a soft breath. "Don't make me beg."</p><p>No waiting, no begging.</p><p>But his name, again.</p><p>
  <em> Waylon, Waylon, Waylon. </em>
</p><p>Waylon pulls him forward, forcing Eddie to kneel on the bed in front of him. The briefs are pulled down, his hand moving to touch Eddie skin-to-skin as his mouth moves to his thigh, trailing kisses along his skin.</p><p><em> Don't make me beg, </em> Eddie said, but with the sounds that come out of him, like he's embarrassed, annoyed, it is a kind of begging, in the same way that Waylon's name being whispered was a kind of truth being told, the same kind of truth that is tied to the way Waylon's mouth gets closer and closer, tongue teasing.</p><p>Eddie is bigger than he expected, and bigger than he's used to, but it doesn't change much. When Waylon's lips pass over the head of his cock, when his tongue teases it, he knows what he's doing. It's Eddie's hips moving forward, pushing his length further into Waylon's mouth, that he realizes he knows what Eddie wants.</p><p>He could give that to him. Let Eddie fuck his mouth hard and vicious and leave him drooling and gasping, struggling to breathe around his girth or imagine anything else other than what it would feel like to have his throat pressed wide and filled with Eddie's cock. How long would he last like that? Thrusting into Waylon's mouth? How long until there was cum coating his throat?</p><p>But he doesn't want it. Not right now. He needs Eddie inside of him. He needs the release of someone fucking him. It's been too long and he's thought about it, specifically Eddie, more than he’s ever willing to admit.</p><p>So he lets Eddie push back as far as he can, he let's Eddie relish in the feeling of it, for the briefest of times, before pulling his mouth free, one hand on Eddie's hip to keep him from trying again, the other wrapped around his length, stroking it again.</p><p>"Waylon—"</p><p>"Touch me," he whispers. "Take me."</p><p>Eddie moves quickly, pushing away. He steps out of his pants, pulls off Waylon’s and sheds both of their shirts. Waylon’s hand trails along the scars on his chest. Eddie’s hand catches it, holds it against where his heart is. It only lasts a second, before Eddie is sitting down on the bed and pulling Waylon onto his lap. He leans forward and catches Eddie’s lips with his, kissing him hard. Waylon rocks his hips forward, rubbing himself against Eddie’s thigh. He wasn't paying attention to how hard he was. Too distracted by Eddie's noises, Eddie's cock.</p><p>"Eddie, fuck," he says softly. "Fuck me."</p><p>"It'll hurt.”</p><p>"I don't care."</p><p>"I promised I wouldn't hurt you, Waylon."</p><p>"Break your promise."</p><p>"I won't break my promise," he says, one hand touching Waylon, stroking him hard and rough. "But I will satisfy you, darling."</p><p>It's—</p><p>Such a surprise, feeling Eddie's hand on him, after all this time of ignoring it, of calling him vulgar for it. He's a little too rough at first, before he spits into his hand, pulling Waylon closer. He moves into Eddie's grasp, his breath catching, words tumbling out that usually end up as<em> fuck Eddie don't stop fuck fuck fuck. </em></p><p>Eddie pauses for a moment, his hand parting to make room for his dick, holding their two cocks together before he starts again. Waylon can't breathe, it all keeps falling out of him, every bit of oxygen pressed out in a moan, feeling Eddie's hand on him, rubbing against Eddie's length. So big that he makes Waylon feel small. He imagines what it would feel like if Eddie was inside of him—probably too big. Stretching him open, breaking him in half. He probably couldn’t take all of it. Did the Engine do that? It’s fucking inhuman.</p><p>"Eddie, I'm going to…" he trails off, bites his lip, tries to hold it back, but even now that he's slowed down, Eddie has sped up. Canting his hips upward, never leaving Waylon a chance to breathe.</p><p>"Go ahead, darling," he says. "Cum for me, Waylon."</p><p>His body shudders, trembles, his cum shooting onto his abdomen, coating Eddie's finger as he keeps stroking the two of them, Waylon growing soft against Eddie's erection. He's shaking still when Eddie climaxes a moment later, their cum mixing together as lube for Eddie to keep stroking them with. Waylon's body sags, caught by Eddie's hand holding him still. He's barely paying attention when Eddie's hand moves to touch him. Slower and slower until it pulls away, wet sticky fingers pressed against his lips.</p><p>Waylon let's them inside, his tongue moving against Eddie's fingertips, cleaning them off. They reach far back, touching that space where the head of Eddie's cock had kissed not too long ago.</p><p>"Eddie…" he whispers, ready to ask when it can happen again, if he can find something, anything, that will make him prepared for next time to fuck Waylon. He wants him now more than he wanted him before.</p><p>Instead, Eddie's face shifts. First to guilt and shame, then to anger, pushing Waylon backward off his lap.</p><p>
  <em> "Whore." </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
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</p><p>— <em> The part of him that's still him thinks about Waylon when he's alone, indulging himself with the first fantasy of a man in a long time. He thinks about Waylon's flushed face, legs spread wide, waiting for him. He thinks about fucking him long and slow and making it last until not even standing still could keep him from cumming. He thinks about how his cum would look, leaking out of Waylon, what it would taste like when he licked it away and shared if with Waylon, passing it from his mouth to Waylon's. He cums for the fourth time that night, alone in his room, dirtying his sheets more than they were already, and just when he thinks he might be done, when the guilt might outweigh the pleasure, a new fantasy crops up. Waylon riding him, Waylon sucking him off, Waylon cumming with Eddie's fingers inside of him. </em></p><p>
  <em> The other part of him rejects it more and more violently. Pushing him downward with images of her screaming for help while he fucks her cunt ruthlessly, making her bleed and choke on his cock. Dying like that, full of his seed, a wilting flower that couldn't take him anymore. He would never kill her unless he had to—but her dying from his cock being pushed too far back on her throat, killing the oxygen in her lungs, eyes rolling back— </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He would like that, wouldn't he? More than Waylon calling out his name, pleading for more? He would rather have a girl begging for him to stop, wouldn't he? </em>
</p><p><em> No. No. No. Nononononono he wouldn't he would never </em> <b>  </b></p><p>
  <em> Stop </em>
</p><p>
  <b> <em>Stop</em> </b>
</p><p>
  <b> <em>S T O P. </em> </b>
</p><p>
  <br/>
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</p><p>“Wake up,” he whispers, a hand pressed against Waylon’s cheek. “Wake up, please.”</p><p>“W-What?”</p><p>“I need you,” Eddie says quietly. “I need you, please, wake up.”</p><p>He opens his eyes, looks up at the worried gaze of Eddie staring back down at him, “What is it, Eddie?”</p><p>“I think I’m going crazy,” he whispers. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”</p><p>“Eddie—”</p><p>“Waylon,” he says, the name coated with fear. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”</p><p>“Let me help you,” Waylon says, sitting up, wrapping his arms tightly around Eddie.</p><p>“I’m supposed to protect <em> you.” </em></p><p>“Protect me, then,” Waylon says. “Protect me, but let me help you.”</p><p>“How?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” he whispers. “But I’ll figure it out.”</p><p>“Do you love me, Waylon?”</p><p><em> He doesn’t know. </em>He can’t tell. His head is so foggy. Everything is so messy and confusing.</p><p>“Yes,” he says, not knowing if he’s lying or not. “I love you, Eddie.”</p><p>And then, Eddie kisses him. With little warning. They are already so close to each other, he doesn’t know what that warning would’ve looked like, but his lips are against Waylon’s, a hand moving to the back of his neck, dragging him closer, and even kisses Waylon with a kind of tenderness that recalls old memories of college girlfriends and Lisa, too. He almost forgot about her. It was easier to forget about her. Especially, he thinks, because he’s kissing Eddie back with the same kind of want, unable to press it down like he wishes he could. He’s driven by a need for something that he can’t contain. He wishes he was pretending he was kissing Lisa. He wishes he was pretending that Eddie was anyone other than Eddie, but he’s not. He wants Eddie to kiss him, especially this way, pulling at that thing in his stomach that has ached and ached for more. It’s not just sexual. He knows that. He doesn’t want Eddie just for the sex.</p><p>Eddie pulls back, breaking the kiss even though Waylon chases after him for more. He doesn’t want it to be over that quickly. He wants more. He wants Eddie’s hands on him, in him.</p><p>“Eddie—”</p><p>“Don’t kiss him.. The other me,” Eddie says quietly. “The one at night. Don’t kiss him. He’s not me. He’s not…. He’s… This place destroys us, Waylon. I don’t want him to destroy you.”</p><p>
  <br/>
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</p><p>— <em> He can’t let it destroy him. Waylon is all he has now. He has to protect him. </em></p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>“Before,” Eddie says, tracing shapes on Waylon’s back. Words or images, maybe new dress designs, Waylon doesn’t know. But he likes the feeling. He likes the kisses that Eddie presses to the side of his head. “You thought I was going to hurt you, right? Sexually?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“You thought I was…” he pauses, chokes the word out. “You thought I would rape you.”</p><p>“Y-Yes.”</p><p>“That first night…”</p><p>“I wanted it.”</p><p>“All of it?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>Eddie breathes a quiet sigh of relief, a hand snaking around Waylon’s waist, moving up underneath his shirt, “I wouldn’t have. I’d rather die.”</p><p>“It happened to you once, right?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“How?” Waylon asks. “You… you asked me once. I told you what happened to me. Eddie, talk to me. Tell me what happened.”</p><p>“It… it was a long time ago.”</p><p>“Eddie—”</p><p>“It’ll upset me, Waylon.”</p><p>“I’ll be here for you,” he says, turning around, arms resting around Eddie’s neck. “You were there for me. Let me return the favor.”</p><p>He nods, but he stays quiet for a long time.</p><p>“F…Fifteen years ago. I lived with my mother, and she got into trouble. She needed money, so she went to my aunt and my uncle. She left me there. And…”</p><p>“Eddie? Who hurt you?”</p><p>“Both of them. They paid her a lot for me,” he says, pulling Waylon’s hands away, fingers resting over the broken skin of his wrists. “They tied me up. Kept me quiet. Waylon, I wouldn’t do that to you. But I think—I think it—I think the monster knows that.”</p><p>“You’re not the monster, Eddie.”</p><p>“No,” he says quietly, like he doesn’t believe it. “You make me human. You make me… me.”</p><p>He wonders if that’s true, or if Eddie has always had these moments of clarity, never strong enough to fight the monster fully.</p><p>“I’m going to get you out of here,” Waylon says, knowing that these are the words he tried so hard to make Eddie say. If he been able to tell himself a month ago that he’d be the one saying it, saying it to Eddie, wanting to protect Eddie, he would’ve laughed. He would’ve spat in Eddie’s face when he got close. He would’ve fought just so he could die. The Waylon from a month ago never would’ve believed he could say those words seriously, to mean them so whole heartedly.</p><p>
  <br/>
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</p><p>— <em> It’s stronger than him. The voices in his head. Mount Massive and the Engine are more powerful than anything. He stupid to believe that his love for Waylon could overpower it. The love isn’t even real. He knows the monster is feeding on that, his worst fears, his lies, his secrets. He locks himself in a room before sunset. He leaves Waylon with the key. He doesn’t trust the monster not to hurt him again, and he wouldn’t risk it either way. He’s afraid if he gets out of here tonight, that Waylon’s hands on his face, his quiet words, won’t be enough to stop him from hurting him. He doesn’t think he would kill Waylon, though. He thinks the monster takes too much pleasure in torturing and mutilating others. But he doesn’t want it to happen. He could feel the way Waylon held him today, the way he looked at him. Waylon makes him quiet, but he makes him stronger, too. </em></p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>He hobbles on a homemade cane to the room, the key turning in the lock, opening it up to look in at where Eddie is huddled in the corner, blood coating his fingers, the skin on his arm scratched and bleeding.</p><p>“Eddie?”</p><p>He gets up quickly, scrambling to his feet and to Waylon, wrapping him up tightly in his arms. He’s so tired, he doesn’t even bother pretending it doesn’t feel nice. He stayed up late, packing what he could, hiding every few minutes at the sound of a noise that felt too close, but was really far, far away. He’s jumpy without Eddie there to protect him, or promise to protect him. But their bags are packed, what little he could find, and yet they’re still stuffed full.</p><p>“You hurt yourself,” Waylon whispers.</p><p>“I know,” he says, pulling back, to kiss him. Waylon’s hand clings on his vest, wondering if he’ll still enjoy this, still want this, when he’s outside, when he’s closer and closer to Lisa.</p><p>Will he even go back to her?</p><p>He can’t imagine that he could. He hardly remembers her. She’s such a distant memory. Too warm and happy when he craves the cold comfort of Eddie’s lips against his.</p><p>“Eddie—”</p><p>“Before we go,” he says, a hand moving to his waist, pressing him against the door jamb. “Let me have you.”</p><p>“Have me when we’re safe.”</p><p>“Darling…”</p><p>“No,” he says carefully, quietly. “Have me a hundred times over, but only when we’re out of here.”</p><p>“Would you let me?”</p><p>
  <em> Yes. </em>
</p><p>The answer comes so easily to him, it makes it hard to say it out loud, so he nods instead, leans up to kiss Eddie once before pulling away, “A hundred times over. But only when we’re out of here.”</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <em> — They run. They don’t stop running. Eddie has to carry Waylon part of the way, they lose one of their packs, they get separated at some point, Eddie leaving Waylon hidden underneath a bed when someone is following them. He tries to come back for him, but he’s gone, and Eddie follows the sounds of screams so undeniably Waylon’s, echoing from a traumatic past so far back he barely recalls that he was the one that caused it. But they find each other, racing out from building, stumbling down the steps, Waylon falling, Eddie helping him up, carrying him towards the car waiting for them like their own personal savior. They leave, driving fast, further and further away until Mount Massive is just a speck in the distance. </em>
</p><p>They stop only because they need gas, but they don’t have the money for it, and both of them are too tired to continue driving, their muscles aching. But they still fuck in the backseat, a bottle of lotion found in the glove compartment,. Waylon riding him, though Eddie barely fits inside of him, and he cums quickly, too quickly. He’s almost embarassed by how he barely lasts. Eddie worhsips his cock like it can make up for ever thinking about getting rid of it, for finishing too quickly. They fall asleep, waking only when the sun starts to rise, when the monster doesn’t feel like it’s going to control him.</p><p>It won’t. It’s not gone, but it’s a faded ghost. It’s the thing trapped now, and Eddie finds pleasure in how much discomfort it gets when Waylon wakes up hard, grinding against Eddie’s leg, asking for more, which he gives. He gives and he gives and he gives, tired of being the one to take, knowing he can never give enough. They stay parked at the side of the road for another night, doing nothing but having sex, waiting to recuperate before they can fuck again. Eddie’s glad it didn’t happen in there, even if it’s still unpleasant, even if the lotion isn’t enough, even when his cum spills out of Waylon and does little to offer help to lubricate him the next time. A hundred times over—that’s what he was promised. He’s not going to hold Waylon to that, but Waylon seems hellbent on it. Greedy and taking, so different than he was in those walls. A side of him that Eddie didn’t get to see. Defiant and aroused and horny like Eddie isn’t enough. He probably isn’t. He probably won’t ever be.</p><p>He’s just happy they’re both alive. He’s happy, even, the next day, when they pack up their things after their final round in the morning and they head down the road with their bags, wondering just how easy it will be to start a life after this.</p><p>They have to. They have to try.</p><p>Waylon’s hand wraps around Eddie’s, and he’s surprised, still, again and again, how little Waylon pulls away as they walk until their feet hurt too much to carry them.</p><p>It was easy to trick himself inside of Mount Massive that Waylon actually wanted him. When he steps backwards further and further, it’s clear all his tricks he used, all the acting he had done. He just wanted to get out. Waylon never wanted Eddie, he only <em> needed </em>him. But he doesn’t let go of Eddie’s hand, and when they stop at a town close by, booking a motel room, Waylon is the one that calls Eddie his husband, he’s the one that initiates the kiss when they settle into a room at a motel for the night. Eddie thought that the sex was just the release, just the relief of being alive, the gratitude that they’re here, mostly unharmed, but Waylon doesn’t let him go, not even when Eddie confesses that the voice of the monster is still there, quiet but whispering, and Waylon kisses him like it doesn’t matter.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>They sit in the bath together, the water hot, filled with suds. It turns dirty and bloody around their bodies, and Waylon is just thankful that the woman at the front desk didn’t turn them away and call the police. Waylon hadn’t realized what he looked like until they got here and he caught his reflection in the mirror. There’s no blood on him, but his skin is still dirty, his clothes still filthy. They’ll be okay, though, he thinks. He found money in a wallet stuffed in the glove compartment and it covered the next few nights.</p><p>He’s the one that asks Eddie to come to the bath with him. Eddie needs it more than he does, but he has ulterior motives. He just wants to rest beside him, and he does. Pulled onto Eddie’s lap, his head resting against his shoulder. The tub filled and drained two times before they finally stop scrubbing at their skin and he can close his eyes and breathe in the cheap scent of soap.</p><p>He hides his face when he thinks about Lisa. He can’t go back to her. Not after this. Not after he continued to sleep with Eddie, not when he kissed him, not when he wants him like this. He can’t go back to Lisa and tell her what he did. She would be quiet, she would be calm, but she would demand answers of who he was leaving her for, even if he could manage to lie to her about everything else. He can’t, though, can he? He wouldn’t be able to see her and not want her affection and comfort after escaping Mount Massive. He would need her. But what would he say, about this last little bit of time with Eddie? What would he say about the contents on the camera?</p><p>He’s making a decision right now, with Eddie holding him, leaving a soft kiss against his temple, that he’s not going anywhere. Even if he thought he could. Murkoff is still out there. Murkoff would destroy everything. The camera has so much footage of Eddie on it that there would be no way to describe and defend his actions. Eddie would just be locked up again. Waylon doesn’t want him to be locked up again.</p><p>Waylon pulls back, one hand dragging through Eddie’s wet hair. Not crusted with grease and blood. It’s strange seeing him like this. Waylon forgot that his skin was marred by whatever the machine did to them, but it’s fading a little bit out here. It looks more like a distant scar than something eating him alive. He’s handsome, even scarred. He was handsome, even bloody and violent. And Waylon thinks about how he had attempted for the last month to manipulate Eddie right back. Turn him inside out the same way Eddie was doing to him, in the only way he can manage.</p><p>Does it count? Is it the same? Does it make him a bad person?</p><p>“I like you like this,” he says, tracing Eddie’s lips with his thumb. “Soft. Quiet. I think I could love you.”</p><p>He thinks he might actually love Eddie already, but he doesn’t know how to say that. All he knows is that he doesn’t love Lisa anymore. He’s incapable. He wouldn’t have asked Eddie for sex if he loved Lisa. He’s a cheater. He’s rotten to the core. It wasn’t for survival, it was out of want. Every single time he asked Eddie for sex, it was because he wanted it. There were ulterior motives, but they weren’t the driving force. The driving force was to satisfy a want, not even a <em> need </em>like he had pretended it was. He didn’t need sex. He wanted it, and he wanted it with Eddie.</p><p>Eddie leans forward, kisses him lightly, lets Waylon be the one to deepen it. But it’s strange—despite their lack of clothes, despite the kiss, despite their closeness, he knows for once this won’t lead to anything. They’re too exhausted. Too worn out from the day. Eddie helps him out of the bath, the two toweling off. For once finally clean, with real soap and real shampoo, in a room with hot air coming out of the vents and blankets soft against their skin. A mattress big enough for the both of them, even though Waylon still folds himself up beside Eddie, snuggles against him to breathe in the scent of clean skin, knowing already that he wants to wake up with Eddie beside him like this every day for the rest of his life. He thinks it might be the only thing that makes him properly happy.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>— It might never go away, the voices crafted and enhanced by the Engine, by the inside of Mount Massive, but Waylon makes it quiet and Waylon makes him human and for a second, he lets himself believe Waylon could actually love him. He lets himself believe that he might be able to make up for letting this monster control him and kill so many people. He pretends that they won’t part ways soon, that Waylon doesn’t have people in his life that want him back, that Eddie can fake a life for himself somehow. For the next few days in the motel while they gather their pieces together, Waylon kisses him like he isn’t planning on leaving him, and Eddie kisses him back, like he could actually someday be his husband.</p><p><em> I think I could love you, </em>Waylon had said.</p><p>And Eddie lets himself believe it.</p>
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